Abstract
This paper presents the implementation of a GPS L1 C/A signal receiver using software- defined radio technology. A HackRF One SDR operating at 10 Msps sample rate was used to capture GPS signals at 1575.42 MHz. A Python-based data acquisition system was developed using the python hackrf library to interface with the hardware and collect raw I/Q samples. The captured signals were processed using GNSS-SDR, an open source GNSS receiver. Signal quality analysis revealed significant differences between indoor and outdoor environments, with out door reception achieving standard deviations of 10-12 compared to less than 4 for indoor signals. The system successfully acquired nine distinct GPS satellites across multiple constellation blocks (IIR, IIR-M, IIF, and III). This shows the feasibility of low cost GPS reception using open-source tools. Even though satellite acquisition was achieved, persistent tracking beyond 16 seconds was challenging. This prevented the accumulation of ephemeris data required for position computation. This work establishes the viability of SDR- based GPS reception and highlights the technical challenges in maintaining stable tracking with general purpose hardware.
Read the full paper of the project at Project Paper
The implementation code of the project are at GPSReceiver.